Cinema owners are cashing in on using film trailers — and it's a multi-million
dollar business, says John Hiscock.

A multimillion-dollar battle is brewing in the US between cinema owners and film companies over coming attractions.

The dispute, which is likely to spread to the U.K., is over money that cinema owners have begun charging studios to play trailers for their upcoming films.

In the past, cinema owners were happy to run the trailers because they believed they helped increase box-office receipts and sales at the concession stands.

But now, realising the value of having Hollywood's target audience already in the cinema, owners have begun charging movie companies to run their trailers and four of the major studios — 20th Century Fox, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros — have reportedly made marketing deals worth several million dollars with cinema chains such as Regal and AMC Entertainment.

Disney Studios and Paramount Pictures have not entered into any deals, while smaller studios may pay as much as $100,000 (£65,000) to play a trailer for one film.

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A few coming attractions still make it on the screen asa result of studio executives lobbying and cajoling their contacts at cinemas with whom they have long-standing relationships, but such old-fashioned methods that don't involve payments are becoming increasingly rare.

The traditional system began to break down in 2001 when Sony paid to advertise its comedy The Animal in front of the hit Universal movie The Mummy Returns. That soon became normal, with pay-for-play deals accelerating in the past two years and some studios spending heavily on advertising on a cinema chain's website with the expectation that its trailers will be treated better as a result.

Some studios opposed to paying for trailers have been forced to relent.

"It's unfortunate that we need to make deals for material that is the lifeblood of the industry for everyone involved," an executive at one studio told the Los Angeles Times.

Competition is fierce and prices are high to run a trailer on front of a popular movie such as The Hobbit— and cinema owners charge more for the final trailer before a movie starts.